Letter 262: Augustine rebukes Ecdicia for unilateral ascetic choices that helped drive her husband from their shared vow.

To Ecdicia, most religious lady and daughter: Augustine sends greetings in the Lord. I read Your Reverence's letter, and I questioned its bearer about the points that still needed to be asked. I was deeply grieved that you chose to deal with your husband in such a way that the building of continence, which had already begun to rise in him, collapsed miserably into the ruin of adultery when perseverance was lost. If he would have deserved tears for returning to marital intercourse after making a vow of continence to God and already taking that way of life into his conduct, how much more must he be mourned now, plunged into a deeper destruction, when in so abrupt a collapse he commits adultery: angry with you, destructive to himself, as though he would strike you more bitterly by perishing himself? So great an evil happened because you did not handle his mind with the moderation you owed him. Even if, by mutual consent, you no longer shared bodily intercourse, in all other things a wife still ought to serve her husband with the obedience proper to marriage, especially since both of you were members of the body of Christ. Certainly if you, a believer, had had an unbelieving husband, you would have needed to live under him in such a way as to win him for the Lord, as the apostles instructed. I pass over, then, the fact that I learned you had taken up continence itself before he wanted it, not according to sound teaching. He should not have been deprived of the debt owed by your body before his will also joined yours in that good which surpasses marital chastity. Perhaps you had not read or heard, or had not noticed, the apostle's words: "It is good for a man not to touch a woman; but because of fornication, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give the wife what he owes her, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer; then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." According to these apostolic words, even if he himself had wanted to be continent and you had not, he would have been obliged to give you what he owed. God would have credited continence to him if, yielding not to his own weakness but to yours, and to prevent you from falling into the damnable disgrace of adultery, he did not refuse you marital intercourse. How much more should you, whose duty of submission was greater, have obeyed his will in rendering this debt, so that he too would not be dragged into adultery by the devil's temptation, while God accepted your will to be continent because you refrained from acting on it lest your husband perish? But this, as I said, I pass over, because afterward, when you would not consent to give him the marital debt, he consented to the same covenant of continence and lived for a long time with you in perfect restraint. By his own consent he released you from the sin by which you had denied him the debt of the flesh. The question in your case, then, is no longer whether you ought to return to intercourse with your husband. What both of you vowed to God by equal consent, both of you ought to keep steadily to the end. If he has fallen from that purpose, you at least should persevere with all firmness. I would not urge this on you unless he had consented to it with you. If you had never had his consent, no number of years would defend you. If you had consulted me after any length of time, I would have answered nothing except what the apostle says: "The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does." He had granted you continence over that authority in such a way that he took it up with you. What grieves me is that you observed less carefully another duty: in domestic life you should have obeyed him with greater humility and obedience precisely because he had so religiously granted you so great a thing by imitating it himself. You did not cease to be his wife because you were both abstaining from bodily union. Rather, you remained spouses in a holier way, because the agreement you both kept was holier. Therefore you should not have done anything about your clothing, your gold or silver, your money of any kind, or any earthly possessions of yours without his judgment. You should not have scandalized a man who had vowed greater things to God with you and had continently abstained from what he could lawfully have demanded from your body. And so it happened that the bond of continence with which that beloved man had tied himself was broken by a sense of contempt. Angry with you, he did not spare himself. As the bearer of your letter reported to me, when he learned that you had given all, or nearly all, that you had to two passing monks, as if they were poor men, he detested them along with you. He thought they were not servants of God, but intruders into another household, your captors and plunderers. Indignant, he cast off the holy burden he had taken up with you. He was weak; therefore you, who seemed stronger in the shared purpose, should not have disturbed him by presumption, but carried him by love. Even if he was perhaps slow to be moved toward more generous almsgiving, he could have learned this too, if he had not been struck by your unexpected spending but invited by services he expected. Then even what you rashly did alone could have been done by both of you with much more prudent and ordered love, in a more fitting and honorable way. The servants of God, if that is what those men were, would not have been slandered for taking so much from an unknown woman, another man's wife, while her husband was absent and unaware. God would have been praised in your works, because your partnership would have been so faithful that you held together not only the highest chastity but also glorious poverty. Now consider what your reckless haste has done. I am willing to think well of those monks, from whom your husband complains that you were not built up but stripped bare, and I will not readily agree against what may have been God's servants with a man whose eye was disturbed by anger. But was the good you did by refreshing the bodies of the poor with larger alms as great as the evil by which you undermined your husband's mind from so good a purpose? Should anyone's temporal welfare have been dearer to you than his eternal welfare? If, thinking of a fuller mercy, you had postponed giving your goods to the poor so that your scandalized husband would not perish before God, would God not have credited you with richer alms? Therefore, if you remember what you had gained when you had won your husband to serve Christ with you in a holier chastity, understand how much heavier was the loss that struck you through those alms by which his heart was overturned than the gains you were imagining as heavenly. If the bread broken for the hungry has great place there, how great a place should be given to the mercy by which a human being is snatched from the devil, like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour? I do not say this so that, if someone is scandalized by our good works, we should think we must give them up. But the case of strangers is one thing, the case of people bound together in some necessary partnership another; a believer is one thing, an unbeliever another; parents toward children one thing, children toward parents another; and above all in these matters, husband and wife are another thing again. A married woman may not say, "I do what I want with my own," since even she is not her own, but belongs to her head, that is, her husband. So, as the apostle Peter recalls, holy women who hoped in God adorned themselves by being subject to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him lord. "You have become her daughters," he says, speaking to Christian women, not Jewish women. Nor is it any wonder if the father did not want your common son to be stripped by his mother of the supports of this life, since he did not know what path the boy would follow when he grew older: whether the profession of a monk, service in the church, or the bond of marriage. The children of holy people should indeed be stirred and trained toward better things, but each person has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that. Or is a father to be blamed for foreseeing and guarding against such things, when the blessed apostle says, "Whoever does not provide for his own, and especially for members of his household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever"? And when he was speaking about almsgiving itself, he said, "Not that there should be relief for others and hardship for you." You ought therefore to have taken counsel together about everything. Together you should have measured what was to be stored up in heaven and what was to be left for the sufficiency of this life, for yourselves, your household, and your son, so that others might not have relief while you suffered hardship. In arranging and doing these things, if something seemed better to you, you should have suggested it reverently to your husband and obeyed his authority as your head. Then all who think soundly, wherever the report of this good of yours might have reached, would have rejoiced in the fruit and peace of your household, and the adversary would have stood in awe, having nothing evil to say about you. If, then, even in making alms and spending your goods on the poor, a good and great work commanded so plainly by the Lord, you ought to have shared counsel with your faithful husband who was keeping with you the holy covenant of continence, and not despised his will, how much more should you have changed or assumed nothing about your habit and clothing apart from his judgment, where we read no divine command at all? Scripture does say that women should be modestly dressed. Gold ornaments, elaborate hair, and the other things of that sort which are used either for empty display or for enticing beauty are rightly rebuked. Yet there is a kind of matronly dress, suited to one's condition, distinct from widow's clothing, which can be fitting for married believers while preserving religious observance. If your husband did not want you to lay it aside, lest you present yourself as a widow while he was still alive, I think this was not a matter to be pushed all the way to the scandal of division, with the evil of disobedience rather than any good of self-denial. What is more absurd than a woman becoming proud toward her husband over humble clothing, when it would have been better for you to obey him with bright conduct than to resist him with dark garments? Even if the clothing of a nun delighted you, it could have been taken up more pleasingly by respecting and persuading your husband than by presuming on it while he was neither consulted nor regarded. And if he absolutely did not allow it, what would your purpose have lost? Far be it from you to displease God because, while your spouse was not yet dead, you were not dressed like Anna but like Susanna. The man who had already begun to keep with you so great a good of continence, even if he wanted you to wear married rather than widow's dress, would not have forced you into indecent adornment. Even if some harsh condition compelled you into proud clothing, you could have kept a humble heart under proud dress. Among the fathers, Queen Esther feared God, worshiped God, and was subject to God, while also serving in subjection to a foreign king, her husband, who did not worship the same God with her. When in extreme danger, not only her own but that of her people, who were then God's people, she fell down before the Lord in prayer, and in that very prayer she said that royal adornment was to her like a menstrual cloth. She was immediately heard as she prayed, because the searcher of hearts knew she was speaking the truth. She had a husband who was husband to many women and a worshiper of foreign and false gods. But you, if he too had persevered in the purpose he had taken up with you and had not been offended by you and fallen into disgrace, would have had a husband who was not only faithful and a worshiper of the true God with you, but also continent. He would surely not have forgotten your shared purpose; even if he required you to wear married clothing, he would not have required proud ornaments. I have written these things because you thought I should be consulted, not to break your right commitment by my words, but because I grieved over what your husband did when you acted disorderly and incautiously. You must think with the greatest seriousness about restoring him, if you truly want to belong to Christ. Put on humility of mind, and, so that God may preserve you in perseverance, do not despise your husband as he perishes. Pour out devout and constant prayers for him. Offer tears as though they were the blood of a wounded heart. Write to him in satisfaction, asking forgiveness because you sinned against him by doing, without his counsel and will, what you thought should be done with your goods. Do not repent of giving to the poor; repent of refusing to have him as a partner and moderator in your good work. Promise that from now on, with the Lord's help, if he repents of his shameful conduct and resumes the continence he abandoned, you will serve him in all things as is fitting. Perhaps, as the apostle says, God will grant him repentance, and he may come back to his senses from the devil's snares, by whom he is held captive according to that one's will. As for your son, who was born to you from lawful and honorable marriage, who does not know that he is more under his father's authority than yours? Therefore he cannot be denied to his father wherever he knows him to be and lawfully demands him. For him to be raised and educated in God's wisdom according to your desire, your harmony with your husband is necessary.

EPISTOLA 262 Scripta post a. 395. A. Ecdiciae, correptionem adhibens quam acerrimam et in mentem revocans uxorum officia in viros (nn. 14; 7-9) atque iniungens ut marito, veniam ab eo petens, satisfaciat (n. 11) quandoquidem a mutua continentia eum deterruerit inconsiderate elemosynas tribuendo ac vidualem habitum induendo (nn. 3; 5; 10). DOMINAE RELIGIOSISSIMAE FILIAE ECDICIAE, AUGUSTINUS, IN DOMINO SALUTEM. Ecdicia viro inoboediens illius impudicitiae culpabilis. 1. Lectis litteris Reverentiae tuae, et earum perlatore interrogato quae interroganda restabant, vehementer dolui sic te voluisse agere cum marito, ut aedificium continentiae, quod in eo iam construi coeperat, amissa perseverantia in adulterii ruinam miserabiliter laberetur. Cum enim lugendus esset, si post continentiam votam Deo, iamque actu ipso moribusque susceptam, reverteretur ad coniugis carnem; quanto magis nunc demersus in interitum profundiorem lugendus est, qui tam abrupta dissolutione moechatur, iratus tibi, perniciosus sibi, tamquam in te acerbius saeviat, si ipse pereat? Hoc autem tantum mali accidit, dum tu eius animum non qua debuisti moderatione tractasti: quia etsi carnali consortio iam ex consensu vobis non miscebamini, in caeteris tamen rebus coniugali obsequio viro tuo mulier servire debuisti; praesertim cum ambo essetis membra corporis Christi 1. Et utique si maritum infidelem fidelis habuisses 2, agere te conversatione subdita oportuit, ut eum Domino lucrareris, sicut Apostoli monuerunt. Mutua coniugum munera et iura. 2. Omitto enim quod ipsam continentiam, illo nondum volente, non secundum sanam doctrinam te suscepisse cognovi. Neque enim corporis tui debito fraudandus fuit, priusquam ad illud bonum, quod superat pudicitiam coniugalem, tuae voluntati voluntas quoque eius accederet; nisi forte non legeras nec audieras, vel non attenderas Apostolum dicentem: Bonum est homini mulierem non tangere: propter fornicationes autem unusquisque uxorem suam habeat, et unaquaeque suum virum habeat. Uxori vir debitum reddat, similiter autem et uxor viro. Uxor non habet potestatem corporis sui, sed vir: similiter autem et vir non habet potestatem corporis sui, sed mulier. Nolite fraudare invicem, nisi ex consensu ad tempus, ut vacetis orationi; et iterum ad idipsum estote, ne vos tentet Satanas propter intemperantiam vestram 3. Secundum haec verba apostolica, etiamsi se ipse continere voluisset, et tu noluisses, debitum tibi reddere cogeretur; et illi Deus imputaret continentiam, si non suae, sed tuae cedens infirmitati, ne in adulterii damnabile flagitium caderes, maritalem tibi concubitum non negaret: quanto magis te, quam magis subiectam esse decuerat, ne ipse quoque in adulterium diabolica tentatione traheretur, in reddendo huiusmodi debito voluntati eius obtemperare convenerat, cum tibi voluntatem continendi acceptaret Deus, quia propterea non faceres, ne periret maritus? Continentiae inter coniuges pacta servanda. 3. Sed hoc, ut dixi, omitto, quoniam postea tibi nolenti sibi ad reddenda coniugalia debita consentire, ad eadem continentiae pacta ipse consensit, et tecum continentissime diu vixit, suoque consensu a peccato illo quo ei debitum carnis negabas, ipse te absolvit. Non ergo iam in tua causa ista vertitur quaestio, utrum redire debeas ad concubitum viri. Quod enim Deo pari consensu ambo voveratis, perseveranter usque in finem reddere ambo debuistis: a quo proposito si lapsus est ille, tu saltem constantissime persevera. Quod te non exhortarer, nisi quia tibi ad hoc ipse consenserat. Nam si numquam tenuisses eius assensum, numerus te nullus defendisset annorum, sed post quantumlibet tempus me consuluisses, nihil tibi aliud responderem, nisi quod ait Apostolus: Uxor non habet potestatem corporis sui, sed vir 4: de qua potestate sic tibi iam permiserat continentiam, ut eam tecum et ipse susciperet. Bonis moribus uxor placeat marito. 4. Sed illud est quod minus te observasse contristor, quia tanto humilius et obedientius ei obsequi in domestica conversatione debuisti, quanto ille religiosius tibi rem tam magnam etiam imitando concesserat. Non enim quia pariter temperabatis a commixtione carnali, ideo tuus maritus esse destiterat; imo vero tanto sanctius inter vos coniuges manebatis, quanto sanctiora concorditer placita servabatis. Nihil ergo de tua veste, nihil de tuo auro vel argento vel quacumque pecunia, aut rebus ullis terrenis tuis sine arbitrio eius facere debuisti, ne scandalizares hominem qui Deo tecum maiora voverat, et ab eo quod de tua carne licita potestate posset exigere, continenter abstinuerat. Quam funesta bonorum profusio inconsiderata. 5. Denique factum est ut vinculum continentiae, quo se dilectus ille innexuerat, contemptus abrumperet, et iratus tibi non parceret sibi. Sicut enim mihi retulit perlator epistolae tuae, cum cognovisset quod omnia vel pene omnia quae habebas, nescio quibus duobus transeuntibus monachis tamquam pauperibus eroganda donaveris; tunc ille detestans eos tecum, et non Dei servos, sed domus alienae penetratores, et tuos captivatores et depraedatores putans, tam sanctam sarcinam quam tecum subierat, indignatus abiecit. Infirmus enim erat, et ideo tibi, quae in communi proposito fortior videbaris, non erat praesumptione turbandus, sed dilectione portandus: quia etiamsi ad ipsas eleemosynas largius faciendas forte pigrius movebatur, posset et ista condiscere, si tuis inopinatis non feriretur expensis, sed exspectatis invitaretur obsequiis, ut etiam hoc quod temere sola fecisti, multo consultius dilectione concordi, multoque ordinatius et honestius ambo faceretis; nec blasphemarentur servi Dei, si tamen hoc fuerunt, qui marito absente atque nesciente, ab ignota muliere et ab aliena uxore tanta sumpserunt; et laudaretur Deus in operibus vestris, quorum esset tam fida societas, ut a vobis communiter teneretur, non solum summa castitas, verum etiam gloriosa paupertas. Spiritalis eleemosyna pretiosior quam corporea. 6. Nunc autem inconsiderata festinatione attende quid feceris. Ut enim de illis monachis, a quibus te ipse non aedificatam, sed spoliatam esse conqueritur, ego bene sentiam, nec homini prae ira turbatum oculum habenti, contra Dei fortasse famulos facile consentiam; numquid tantum bonum est, quod pauperum carnem largioribus eleemosynis refecisti, quantum malum est, quod viri tui mentem a tam bono proposito subruisti? An cuiusquam tibi temporalis salus carior esse debuerat, quam huius aeterna? Nonne si ampliorem misericordiam cogitans, ideo pauperibus res tuas erogare differres, ne scandalizatus maritus tuus Deo periret, uberiores tibi Deus eleemosynas imputaret? Proinde si recolis quid acquisiveras, quando lucrata fueras virum tuum, ut tecum Christo sanctiore castitate serviret; intellege per illas eleemosynas tuas, quibus cor eius eversum est, quanto graviore damno percussa fueris, quam sunt illa lucra, quae coelestia cogitabas. Si enim habet ibi magnum locum panis fractus esurienti 5, quantum locum ibi credenda est habere misericordia, qua homo eripitur diabolo, tamquam leoni rugienti, et quem devoret inquirenti 6? Uxores viris subiectas esse debere. 7. Neque hoc ita dicimus, ut si quisquam scandalizatus fuerit de bonis operibus nostris, ab eis desistendum putemus; sed alia causa est alienarum, alia necessariarum in societate aliqua personarum; alia fidelis, alia infidelis; alia parentum erga filios, alia filiorum erga parentes: alia postremo ea, quae in his rebus vel maxime intuenda est, viri et uxoris, ubi mulierem coniugatam non licet dicere: "Facio quod volo de meo"; cum et ipsa non sit sua, sed capitis sui, hoc est viri sui 7. Nam sic quaedam, ut commemorat apostolus Petrus, mulieres sanctae quae in Deum sperabant, ornabant se, subiectae suis viris: sicut Sara obsequebatur Abrahae, dominum eum vocans 8, cuius, inquit, factae estis filiae 9; cum ad Christianas, non ad Iudaeas feminas loqueretur. In eleemosynis fundendis providendum esse liberis. 8. Quid autem mirum si pater communem filium nolebat huius vitae sustentaculis a matre nudari, ignorans quid sectaturus esset, cum in aetate grandiuscula esse coepisset; utrum monachi professionem, an ecclesiasticum ministerium, an coniugalis necessitudinis vinculum? Quamvis enim ad meliora excitandi et erudiendi sint filii sanctorum, unusquisque tamen proprium donum habet a Deo; alius sic, alius autem sic 10. Nisi forte talia prospiciens et praecavens reprehendendus est pater, cum beatus Apostolus dicat: Quisquis autem suis et maxime domesticis non providet, fidem denegat, et est infideli deterior 11. Cum vero de faciendis ipsis eleemosynis loqueretur, ait: Non ut aliis refectio sit, vobis autem angustia 12. Pariter ergo consilium de omnibus haberetis, pariter moderaremini quid thesaurizandum esset in coelo, quid ad vitae huius sufficientiam vobis et vestris vestroque filio relinquendum, ne aliis esset refectio, vobis autem angustia. Et in his disponendis atque faciendis, si quid tibi forte melius videretur, suggereres viro reverenter, eiusdemque auctoritatem tamquam tui capitis sequereris obedienter; ut omnes qui sanum sapiunt, ad quos posset hoc bonum vestrum fama perferre, de domus vestrae fructu ac pace gauderent, et adversarius revereretur nihil habens de vobis dicere pravi. Uxores viris obtemperent et corporis quoad cultum habitumque. 9. Porro si de faciendis eleemosynis et in pauperes impendendis rebus tuis, de quo bono opere et magno tam evidentia praecepta sunt Domini, cum viro tuo fideli et tecum sancta continentiae pacta servante consilium communicare deberes, eiusdemque non spernere voluntatem; quanto magis de habitu atque vestitu nihil tibi praeter eius arbitrium mutandum vel usurpandum fuit, unde nihil divinitus legimus imperatum? Scriptum est quidem, mulieres esse debere in habitu ornato; aurique circumpositio, et intortio crinium, et caetera huiusmodi quae vel ad inanem pompam vel ad illecebram formae adhiberi solent, merito reprehensa sunt 13. Sed est quidam pro modulo personae habitus matronalis a viduali veste distinctus, qui potest fidelibus coniugatis salva religionis observantia convenire. Hunc te maritus si deponere noluit, ne te velut viduam illo vivente iactares, puto quia non fuerat in hac re usque ad dissensionis scandalum perducendus, magis inobedientiae malo, quam ullius abstinentiae bono. Quid enim est absurdius, quam mulierem de humili veste viro superbire, cui te potius expediret obtemperare candidis moribus, quam nigellis vestibus repugnare? Quia etsi te indumentum monachae delectabat, etiam hoc gratius posset marito observato exoratoque sumi, quam illo inconsulto contemptoque praesumi. Quod si omnino non sineret, quid tuo proposito deperiret? Absit ut hinc displiceres Deo, quod coniuge tuo nondum defuncto, non induereris sicut Anna, sed sicut Susanna. Et in cultu superbo posse cor humile servari. 10. Neque enim et ille, qui tecum iam coeperat custodire tam magnum continentiae bonum, etiamsi coniugale non viduale voluisset ut acciperes indumentum, ad indecentem quoque te compulisset ornatum: quo etsi aliqua dura conditione cogereris, posses habere in superbo cultu cor humile. Nempe apud patres, Esther illa regina Deum timens, Deum colens, Deo subdita, marito regi alienigenae non eumdem secum colenti Deum, tamen subiecta serviebat; quae cum in extremo periculo, non suo tantum, sed etiam gentis suae, qui tunc erat populus Dei, Domino prosterneretur orando, in ipsa oratione sua dixit, ita sibi esse ornatum regium, sicut pannum menstrualem 14; et ita orantem confestim exaudivit, qui cordis inspector 15 eam verum dicere scivit. Et utique maritum habebat multarum mulierum virum, et deorum alienorum falsorumque cultorem. Tu autem si et ille in proposito quod tecum susceperat, perduraret, nec a te offensus in flagitium corruisset, maritum habebas non solum fidelem, et verum Deum tecum colentem, sed etiam continentem; qui procul dubio propositi vestri non immemor, etsi ad coniugalia te cogeret indumenta, ad superba tamen ornamenta non cogeret. Filios matri patrique subiectos esse. 11. Haec tibi scripsi, quoniam me consulendum putasti, non ut tuum rectum institutum sermone meo frangerem, sed quod te inordinate et incaute agente, viri tui factum dolerem. De cuius reparatione debes vehementissime cogitare, si vere ad Christum vis pertinere. Indue itaque humilitatem mentis, et ut te Deus conservet perseverantem, noli maritum contemnere pereuntem. Funde pro illo pias et assiduas orationes, sacrifica lacrymas tamquam vulnerati sanguinem cordis. Et scribe ad eum satisfactionem, petens veniam, quia in eum peccasti, quod praeter eius consilium et voluntatem de rebus tuis fecisti, quod faciendum putasti, non ut te poeniteat tribuisse pauperibus, sed eum tui boni operis participem et moderatorem habere noluisse. Promitte de caetero in adiutorio Domini, si et illum suae turpitudinis poenituerit, et continentiam quam deseruit repetiverit, te illi, sicut decet, in omnibus servituram; ne forte, ut ait Apostolus, det illi Deus poenitentiam, et resipiscat de diaboli laqueis, a quo captivus tenetur secundum ipsius voluntatem 16. Filium autem vestrum, quoniam de legitimis eum et honestis nuptiis suscepistis, magis in patris quam in tua esse potestate quis nesciat? Et ideo ei negari non potest, ubicumque illum esse cognoverit, et iure poposcerit: ac per hoc ut secundum tuam voluntatem in Dei possit nutriri et erudiri sapientia, necessaria est illi etiam vestra concordia.